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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You manage online for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. However, we're all losing something here.